


cognitive dissonance

by delia-pavorum (literaryminded)



Category: Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: (is my rap name), Come see Ben and Rey get to Second Base, Emotional Constipation, F/M, Force Bond, Gratuitous Smut, Heavy Petting, Making Out, Not really but basically, Physical Gratification, Post-Crait, That's Basically All There Is To This, The alternate title was Virgins in Space, li'l angsty, through the Force
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-05
Updated: 2018-09-05
Packaged: 2019-07-07 04:21:31
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,759
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15900789
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/literaryminded/pseuds/delia-pavorum
Summary: She knows a part of him is holding back. He doesn’t lift her shirt, bring his mouth to her bare skin. It makes her antsy. It makes her shift restlessly beneath him.Do I have to beg?she thinks, annoyed.I did, is his acrid reply.The Force Bond opens for the first time after the Battle of Crait as two disparate, yet connected, souls struggle to coincide their convictions with their desires.





	cognitive dissonance

**Author's Note:**

> This fic came about from the following prompt request (full list on my tumblr [here](https://delia-pavorum.tumblr.com/post/175013803551/update-09042018-last-update-i-was-so-impressed)):
>
>> ANONYMOUS ASKED:  
> angsty nsfw 44 + 45 pls? work your pro magic! <3
> 
> First of all, bless you, anon, for assuming I'm a pro at anything. 
> 
> Secondly, #44 + 45 are as follows: "Y-you're what?" + "Are you scared of me?" 
> 
> Thanks to some amazing writers in the Reylosnetwork and The Writing Den discords, respectively, as well as a shout-out and ultimate thank you, as always, to my smutmama tribe for helping me figure out a semi-reasonable answer to the question: “What base would Rey and Ben get to the first time they hook up in canon?” 
> 
> So, enjoy these two virgins figuring some stuff out. In the Bond. Post-Crait.

* * *

**cognitive dissonance**

_**noun**. An inconsistency between one’s actions and one’s beliefs._

* * *

Rey is unsure how she came to be walking down a dark corridor in her nightclothes.

She knows the Force is to blame. Logically, she knows this. But it is difficult to conflate her beliefs with the reality of the situation. Moments earlier, she had been fast asleep in her bed.

She wasn’t asleep any longer.

The soles of her bare feet make almost no sound as she hesitantly goes further into the darkness. An endless red light illuminates the path at her feet on either side, but otherwise there is nothing else to guide her. The only sound she hears is her own breathing, harsh and rasping, as her breaths get shorter and more anxious. She walks faster – it has always been her custom to continue forward, rather than turn back – until the red light gives way to white, the shining illumination of a door.

She stops abruptly and stands in front of it, shifting her weight from leg to leg, her toes numb from the feeling of cold durasteel beneath her feet for so long. Her hand reaches out hesitantly. When she sees that it’s trembling, she clenches it into a fist before shaking it out and trying again.

Her fingertips, only slightly steadier now, graze the cool metal alloy. She knows – she _just_ _knows_ – who lies beyond that door.

Suddenly and without warning, she is seized from behind, a hand at her throat and the other banded around her waist, holding her tightly against a large and solid form.

She lets out an involuntary squeak, shocked and frightened, her heart pounding an unsteady beat.

“I don’t believe it,” a familiar deep voice, quiet but resounding, drawls into her ear. “Are you…scared of me?”

Her breath comes out in harsh pants. She can hear the leather of his gloves creak as they adjust their position around her throat – she notes that he holds her firm, but controlled, as though his grasp means to stay her and not choke her. This provides little comfort.

“You,” he continues, “who left me on the floor in the midst of a massacre. With the bodies of our Supreme Leader and his guards strewn around us, and I — _I,”_ he repeats on a snarl, “the only one alive. Knowing what they would think when they found me there. Is it truly _you_ who fears _me_?” He shakes her, just slightly. “Could I have been that merciless, that cruel to _you,_ I wonder?”

She can feel the entire hard length of his body against her back. Every fold and fastener on his clothing. Can feel every ragged intake of breath. Even the rumble of his chest when he speaks. Her own breath starts to come out even faster and she doesn’t reply.

After a beat, he lets out a scoff. “That’s what I thought. The Scavenger is silent for once. Even her mind holds no scraps for me. Better at hiding your feelings now, I see. Has Leia taught you that? Maker knows it wouldn’t be Skywalker anymore,” he finishes, cruelly. His hand has loosened from her throat entirely now and instead presses down on her upper chest, continuing to hold her taut against his body. His other arm shifts around her waist, moves higher under her rib cage, but gives her no quarter.

She knows she has the power to push him away. To move.

She doesn’t.

If he’s curious as to why, he doesn’t let on. More likely he is trapped in the turmoil of his own thoughts, a roiling tempest she can feel in the air, the contents of which remain hidden to her the way hers are to him, although still a feeling that clings to them both.

She knows she’s right when he continues to speak, despite the fact that she has given him nothing to go on. 

“I’m—” he begins, then cuts himself off. His mouth draws closer to her, grazing at her temple - or is that simply a breath escaping from his parted lips? His hands tighten. She swallows hard.

“Y-you’re what?” she stammers, finally, her voice sounding rusty and unused.

“Never mind,” he whispers. _A fool_ , his mind, loosening a bit, a crack of light beneath a door, replaces the words he refuses to say out loud.

Her breath catches. _No,_ she thinks back at him fiercely, allowing a negligible entrance to form in her own mind, just slightly. Just for this. _Never that._

His body sags and his arms loosen so that she has enough mobility to turn around and look up at him. The anger appears to have drained from his countenance and he’s looking away from her, mouth working and jaw clenched. She stares at him for a beat, before hesitatingly reaching her hands up to touch his face.

For whatever she expected to happen when bare skin touches bare skin - a vision, a spark, even a flicker in the bond - nothing actually does. Except that he looks at her, his gaze snagging hers, illuminated only by the glow of white light around the door. She sees anger in his eyes, still, and bitterness. Torment. And something else, something less definable, something that causes her heart to pump an irregular beat and gooseflesh to rise up on her arms.

_This isn’t real_ , she tries to convince herself, knowing what she’s preparing to do, what she’s unable to stop herself from doing, even though the part of her that is made up of logic and reason and loyalty and morality tells her not to, _screams_ at her not to - it’s no use. The draw is too powerful.

On Jakku, she survived by taking what she needed, when she needed it. It’s all she knows. Not hesitation. Not fear. Only strength and acquisition.

So, she takes.

Rising up on her toes, she draws his face down to hers and their mouths connect.

He had clearly not anticipated this. His entire body jolts in surprise, his arms straightening away from his body. It only takes a second for him to acclimate, however, and when he does she feels it, hot and feverish in the bond and in his response, mouth opening, arms winding around her and lifting her clear off the floor.

She twines her own arms around his neck and deepens the kiss, parting her lips to meet his, tongues tasting, lips sliding, teeth touching. She has no idea what she’s doing, has no idea if he does, but whatever it is, it feels good and right. The Force agrees, humming and pulsing around and through them with vibrant energy.

He says a word against her lips that she doesn’t recognize, a harsh-sounding word with a soft beginning and a hard ending. Then he says a word she does recognize: “ _Rey_.”

She responds by letting out a quiet moan.

Picking her up fully, he carries her closer to the door. He manages to rip off one glove while juggling her in his arms and slams his hand on a data panel to gain them entry.

Her suspicions were right about what lay beyond the door – they’ve appeared to enter his quarters, sparse and sterile as they are.

He takes her past what she assumes is the ‘fresher, past an austere coach and uncomfortable looking chair, straight to his bed, sheets pulled taut, looking as though no one had ever slept on it in the entirety of its existence.

She looks up into his determined, heated, haunted face, dark circles seeming to be permanently etched under his eyes, emphasizing the scar bisecting his right cheek.

_Maybe_ , she thought, _no one had._

He deposits her onto the bed and climbs on top of her, again catching her lips with his, fevered and frenzied.

Through her thin nightclothes she can feel everything. The planes of his hard body, the folds and ridges of multiple layers of clothing, and a steely hardness settling in the crux of her thighs. Her heart beats a wild rhythm, one part fear, the other excitement.

_It’s not real_ , she tells herself again. _It’s okay, because it’s not rea—_

He thrusts, jerkily and almost inadvertently, sending shockwaves of pleasure through her body and she breaks her mouth from his and lets out a ragged groan.

_Well, it kriffing_ feels _real,_ her mind rebels, as her hips rise up to meet his.

The feeling of his body, heavy on hers. His full lips, the wet slide of his tongue, a bare hand coasting over the soft material of her shirt, her puckered nipple greeting his palm.

He gives her breast a squeeze, almost testing it, feeling the weight, like one would sample a Jogan fruit to ensure its ripeness.

A part of her loves it. _Try me, test me,_ she thinks, matching every teeth-clacking tongue glide with one of her own, devouring his mouth, biting those plush lips. _Taste me._

They are animals, the two of them. The rhythm they found in the Force when they fought side-by-side in the throne room is present here, too, in the way they match each other in intuition and action, anticipating the way the other will move - finding each other, helping each other. She cradles him with her body, he strokes her with his hand. They are one. And _this isn’t real_ , so it’s okay.

“Rey,” he moans raggedly against her lips, resting his forehead on hers. _What are we—?_

She shakes her head. _Don’t._ Her hands reach up to cup his face again. _Don’t._ Her lips on his, quick and fierce, a nip at the end, sharper than can be considered pleasant. _I’m here. Right now. Only this. Only now._

It’s a promise and a threat and a warning. It’s permission and it’s absolution. Just this. Just now.

_Just us._

He kisses her again on the lips, then down further. Her collarbone. Her shoulder. The fresh scar on her bicep. Down over her shirt, over her pert breasts, nipples distended through the fabric. He takes one in his mouth, wetting it through the cloth. She cards her fingers through his hair, holds him there for a bit. He bites and she laughs, feeling bold. Feeling free.

She knows a part of him is holding back. He doesn’t lift her shirt, bring his mouth to her bare skin. It makes her antsy. It makes her shift restlessly beneath him.

_Do I have to beg?_ she thinks, annoyed.

_I did,_ is his acrid reply.

She stills, the bitterness more than she can handle in this moment, vulnerable enough as it is, but he softens the thought with another kiss, his hand snaking up her thigh, under the Suliana virgin cotton – the finest material she’s ever worn – of her nightshorts, touching the soft flesh where her leg meets her pelvis, and then tickling just to the left, furrowing through the coarse hair, coaxing the warm, wet flesh apart to meet the tip of his finger.

She looks up at him, fingers clenched into his biceps. He wears a look of concentration on his face so severe she almost laughs, though she wouldn’t dare. Beads of sweat mark his brow. She can feel his rigid arousal on the outer thigh of her other leg.

He’s trying, so very hard, she realizes. She shifts her leg slightly. _Very hard_.

Taking pity on him, she opens her thoughts a bit wider, allows him to hear more than just the words she’s been pointedly sending to him. Words that can help guide him to the right spot, the right feeling. She allows, just for this moment, her own insights to infiltrate his mind.

The moment she opens the floodgates, words start pouring into her own head, and she lets out a soft gasp at the influx of information spilling forth—

_Oh, fuck, wet, so wet, good, hot, Maker, mine—_

—before he closes it with an audible click.

_This isn’t real_ , she reminds herself, her voice quiet, subdued even in her own head. _Not really._

Even she barely believes it anymore.

His fingers, so large – _she thinks of a trembling hand extended towards her own in a fire-lit cave_ – guided by her tremulous emotions, move up and around her silken flesh, teasing, drawing wetness out and upwards, causing her legs to jerk as he touches and strokes the spot where she needs it the most.

“Yesss,” he hisses in her ear, growing bolder as she writhes and moans. She wraps an arm around his neck to bring him closer; he bites her ear and kisses her throat and his fingers slip through her wetness until one slides right inside her.

She gasps and her eyes connect with his. The fervent energy she sees there, the lust and the longing, cause her heart to palpitate. Holding his gaze, she lifts her hips slightly, drawing his finger deeper into her body.

His eyes close heavily, his brow furrowing, his expression a cross between pain and ecstasy. “I can feel—all—of—it,” he groans, speech faltering through gritted teeth and it takes her a second to discern his meaning, but then his finger crooks slightly and a wave of pleasure causes her own jaw to clench and they both shudder and moan simultaneously. She realizes, then, that her pleasure is intertwined with his; whatever one feels, so does the other.

She barely has time to register this for the marvel it is, when he shifts his hand and brings his thumb back up to massage her clit while his other finger continues to plunge in and out of her body, stroking and kneading her inner walls.

“ _Fuck_ , Rey,” he mumbles against her throat, clasping her hair in his free hand.

_That word again_.

Something about it – the way he says it – activates her response to him even further, sending her hurtling closer to the edge of whatever precipice she’s approaching. Living on Jakku, her experience of different languages was varied and abundant, but she’d never encountered that particular word. She doesn’t even know if she can determine the exact meaning of it, as he appears to be using it in diverse ways. It intrigues her.

Her current circumstances, however, intrigue her even more.

She brings her own hands up, one arm still around his neck, and cards them through his hair, clutching him tightly to her. His grip tightens on her own hair and she can feel him down below, hard and insistent against her thigh still, hips rocking slightly, jerkily, as his fingers continued to stroke.

Belatedly realizing the unfulfilled nature of his own circumstances, she guiltily untangles her hand from his hair and brings it down, cupping him through his pants, applying pressure.

He groans and his hand falters. Still, pleasure zings through her and she understands what he meant when he said he felt everything. She was so close, _so kriffing close_ —

She moves her hand up and down in harsh strokes and he slides another large finger into her liquid core, stroking and curling upwards. She feels filled up, more than she’s ever felt, and the pleasure-pain of it sends her into a frenzy. She grits her teeth and lets out an almost-feral cry from inside her throat, squeezing his length in her hand and his hand between her thighs and suddenly she sees the precipice and her vision blanks out and she feels herself hurtling over the edge.

He emits his own guttural, bone-shaking groan, shuddering with his own release, his body trembling in her arms. She comes down before him and just holds him tightly against her, refusing to allow the pervasive righteousness of her unwelcome morality intrude.

_This isn’t_ — _it’s not_ —

Even her inner voice chokes on the words.

After a moment, he looks up at her, sable hair hanging over his brow, eyes smouldering even through the haze of pleasure still lurking in their depths. He opens his mouth to say something. She holds her breath in anticipation.

Suddenly, she’s cold.

With a start, she looks around at her surroundings. No longer in a pristinely-made bed in the cool, ascetic chambers of the Supreme Leader of the First Order, but instead in her own bed, thighs sticking together, sweat clinging to her hairline, disheveled and bereft of the heated and heavy body she had just been cradling.

Still panting, she takes a minute to assess her circumstances, to consider her actions and the contradiction they embody towards who she is – _should be –_ as a person.

In that loaded moment, only one word comes to mind.

“Fuck.”

**Author's Note:**

> [Come say hi!](http://delia-pavorum.tumblr.com)  
> [Read some of my other stuff!](https://delia-pavorum.tumblr.com/post/177501660836/delia-pavorum-fic-masterpost)  
> [Ask me a question!](https://delia-pavorum.tumblr.com/ask)  
>  (I seek validation in many forms)


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